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Jul 5, 2014 at 8:06 PM

Spartanburg County will likely miss a state-imposed deadline for reporting mental illness cases to a nationwide database accessed during background checks for gun ownership.

Spartanburg County will likely miss a state-imposed deadline for reporting mental illness cases to a nationwide database accessed during background checks for gun ownership.A bill passed in May 2013 required state probate courts to report all cases where a person has been adjudicated mentally incompetent or involuntarily committed to a mental health facility. The reporting requirement began Aug. 1, 2013, and probate courts were given one year to report 10 years of backlogged cases.With the Aug. 1 deadline swiftly approaching, Spartanburg County Probate Judge Ponda Caldwell said her office will not be able to comply. "We are just doing what we can, as we can," she said.Of the estimated 9,000 mental health cases that had to be considered for reporting, Caldwell estimates there's about 2,500 left to be reviewed. Not every case has to be reported, but Spartanburg County does not have the technology to sort the files digitally, making the task time-consuming and laborious. "We have had to put physical hands on every file," she said.The mental health records are kept locked away in a small closet in the probate court. The documents are subject to federal laws pertaining to health care confidentiality, so Caldwell said she is very particular about who reviews the information. A trusted community volunteer was helping early in the process but had to stop because of family commitments. Since then, Caldwell herself has been handling the task, usually on weekends. "With the regular volume of probate work coming in, I didn't think I could take my regular staff away," she said. Caldwell said she hopes to have the work completed by November. "You just work until you get the job done. … I feel like we've done as good of a job as we're able to," she said.Probate judges in Cherokee and Union counties said they have finished their reporting, but note their burden was lighter because of the population of their respective counties. "It was very time-consuming," said Judge Josh Queen in Cherokee County. "I put one clerk on it and that was pretty much all she did for I don't know how long." Judge Donna Cudd of Union County said she handled most of the reporting herself after hours and on weekends, and estimated she had about 1,000 files to review. Union County does not have facilities for mental commitment, so judges in other counties handle most hearings for Union County residents and do the reporting, Cudd said. Federal law bans those adjudicated mentally incompetent or involuntarily committed from owning a gun, but enforcement relies on states reporting those individuals to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. The reporting is inconsistent. As of October 2011, 13 years after NICS was launched by the FBI, South Carolina had only reported 17 cases, according to Mayors Against Illegal Guns. South Carolina's inconsistent history of reporting mental health cases made conquering the 10-year backlog even more difficult because the State Law Enforcement Division wasn't set up to efficiently receive the information. Some counties gained access to encrypted email to send the sensitive information, but others — including Spartanburg, Cherokee and Union — were left sending faxes."It was awful," Queen said. "You'd run 10 files through there and get a busy signal."The reporting requirement went into effect after police said 28-year-old Alice Boland brandished a weapon outside a Charleston prep school in February 2013. When confronted by security, police said Boland tried to fire the weapon but was unsuccessful because the safety was on. Despite a record of mental illness that should have precluded her from having the weapon, Boland purchased the gun only days before."I've got a kid in first grade, so it kind of struck a chord with me," Queen said.Rep. Eddie Tallon, R-Spartanburg, who sponsored the reporting bill, said South Carolina narrowly averted another Newtown-like incident and he hoped the law would keep guns from the hands of the mentally unstable. Cudd agreed, but said she worries it is more likely a mentally unstable person will find a gun at home, and there is little that can be done to prevent that."Anything that you can do to save a life is worthwhile," she said. "… There are many scenarios you can't prevent, but if you save one life, it's worth it."

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